Summary:

They’ve been struggling a lot with time zones recently.

They’ve always texted each other no matter where either of them are, or what time it is. It used to just be sexts and hotel room numbers and deleted messages. Now, it’s also funny videos and articles about hockey and long, rambling threads, only messages with their names deleted. They video call nearly every night. Nothing is really specific to the time.

Except.

“Good morning,” “goodnight,” sappy and saccharine, sent as soon as they wake up and right before they go to bed. That’s been a thing since the cottage, especially on nights they can’t call. Good morning, goodnight, easy when they’re both on the same continent, easy when there’s no time difference versus a 7 hour one, but Shane keeps sending the wrong one by accident lately, and Ilya teases him because -

“Shane?”

“He’s in Russia,” Shane rasps.
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or: home is a person, not a place, from Shane's POV

(This fic will not make sense without reading the first part in the series!)